Today, my family would get together to celebrate a joint birthday dinner for my sister and Bác Vân.

I started off playing a bit of Overwatch this morning until I had to start getting ready. Jesica stopped by to visit for just a bit before I was supposed to leave, and gave me the biggest, most intentional hugs I’ve ever received from her. It was a hilarious role reversal.

After only a few minutes, I showed her out so I could take Bác Vân to meet the rest of my family at Linh Vietnamese Cuisine. Dinner conversation ranged from a murder most fowl, to how to purposefully deface my parents’ own cemetery plots as a strategy to sell them back to the cemetery, to my father’s retirement and whether to opt for survivor benefits. I suggested he remarry a significantly younger and healthier heiress as to draw the benefits for an unnaturally long time. I’m sure that’s never been done before.

After dinner, I went home for a little while before going next door to hang Bác Vân’s new 49″ LG TV with the articulating mount I bought her. I was surprised to find one defective part and four screws that were too short to follow the provided directions, but we improvised and powered through the install. My parents forgot to pack the power cable with the TV, so I had to run over to their house to retrieve it, but I eventually got her sorted.

I waited up all night for someone to show up for some gaming as promised, but for the third night in a row, I was left to my own devices.

My hands have been a bit tender since drinking last night, and I’ve no idea why.

Perhaps it’s Death.

I’m in such a state of fury, shock, horror, disbelief, and frustration. I missed out on the duck yesterday because I was sick. I went out this morning before work to feed it, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. After giving up on chasing it around the pen, I went in to get some food for it. On the way back with food, I discovered it. The bill. Just the bill. Something had ripped my duckling apart. Completely destroyed it. Literally only its mouth was left in my lawn. I’ve never seen anything like a cat do something like that, so I’m assuming it was a raccoon or something. No feathers, no bones. Just a beak.

I trudged through work. Ate Brick Oven. Went home at 4. Played some Overwatch. Listened to some Linkin Park.

Fuckin’ duck, man. Nothing like nature to remind you how savage and unforgiving the world is.

Just like some predator to make a meal of my duck and then stick me with the bill.

I woke up still holding on to the fever from last night, so I called in to work for at least a half day. After going back to sleep, I didn’t wake up until well after lunchtime, so I let them know I’d be taking off the rest of the day as well.

I couldn’t kick the fever all day, but I managed to call Suddenlink to complain about my rate. I went from $94 for 100Mb and telephone service to $54 for 200Mb service and no telephone. I call that a win.

Late in the evening, I called Brandie to see how her mom’s doing. Apparently she’s been in the hospital after a multiple bypass, compounded by diabetic issues. She says she’s doing relatively well, but still has to get through therapy to regain some independence.

I’m just now starting to feel better, so hopefully some sleep will get me back to normal for the morning.

Ain’t goin’ to work, no way!

As if by clockwork, I came down with a fever and body aches this afternoon. This is exactly 31 days after I thought I had contracted avian flu from the duck. At first I thought it was the Ci-Ci’s, but this mess is more sinister.

I came home after work and burned up under the covers for a few hours, trying to sweat it out like last time. I think the fever’s still here, along with the aches and ringing ears as though I’ve returned from a war zone.

Speaking of war, I tried playing a single, short-lived game of Battlegrounds with Jack and Josh. That hurt too much, so now I’m back to bed.

‘Til the very next day…

I spent all day fighting with my Autodesk deployment again. Still nowhere. It’s super aggravating.

Allen and I went to Taco Villa for lunch. I can’t believe how crowded that place stays.

After work, I went to my parents’ house for thịt kho tàu, which is caramelized/braised pork and hard boiled eggs.

On the way home I had to stop for gas, then pulled through the parking lot at AT&T as Kevin and Mayra were just getting off work to visit for a minute.

Once home, Johnny, Aaron, a random, and I won a game of Battlegrounds. Awesome.

More sleep is more gooder.

I finally got some successful deployments at work today. Allen and I went to Linh for lunch, which was surprising and awesome. Ben is the only one that has ever gone there with me before. Allen really liked the sweet and spicy chicken he got, and I had the phở.

After work, I came home and fed the duck. It looked like it had gotten into a smaller water dish I left out, which is good. The food dish was also full of water though, so I’m sure Bác Vân did that unintentionally while watering her garden. I don’t know what time she normally does that, but I’ll have to figure something out to make sure the duck’s getting food before it gets ruined every day.

I finished the night with some Battlegrounds and a couple depressing games of Overwatch. I’m going to try and get to sleep earlier tonight with the hopes that I’ll feel better rested in the morning.

Why do we live in a world with metered internet usage, and where I have to threaten to cancel my cable internet in order to get a better price?

I got up this morning and let the duck go to its new home in the garden. It had eaten a little bit this morning, but not nearly as much as usual. At least all of the corn was gone. I’ll need to go get a bag of frozen corn or something to throw out there later. I couldn’t tell that it did much other than hide all day, but it was hot outside, and it just stayed in the shade of the plants.

Josh came over for some help with a laptop, and I unloaded a desktop onto him. He wanted wireless for it, so we stopped by the office to get a scrap NIC for him, and then my parents and sister wanted to go out to eat. Julie picked me up, and we met Mom and Dad at Sumo. The service was awful, but the food was fair. I’d had much better from there before. At one point while taking our orders, the waitress’s phone started ringing and she actually pulled it out to check it. What’s worse is that she didn’t even bother to reject the call or silence the ringer, so it kept playing the Super Mario Bros. theme song awkwardly as she moved on to the next family’s order.

Once home, I did a couple loads of laundry while watching How I Met Your Mother, then finished the night with some Battlegrounds with Johnny and Jack.

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

I had planned to get the duck outside this morning, but there was a crew taking down a tree a few houses away, and I didn’t like all the noise. I decided to feed the duck and get it used to a new food dish that I can keep outside by its new water bucket, but I couldn’t tell that it ever ate anything from it all day. It just slept the entire day. I normally see it eat a ton, so I’m not sure what was up today. I turned the light off before sunset so it could get used to natural night time, and I guess I’ll try again tomorrow.

The rest of the day was spent munching on leftovers and playing Overwatch and Battlegrounds. Nothing else to show for myself.

I wish I lived in a place that’s nice.

I wasn’t sent off to any projects today, so I spent most of my time working on my deployment for Autodesk Inventor. It’s still not working. I’m running out of time fast. I hate it.

After work, I took Bác Vân to Lowe’s, then Tractor Supply Co. to shop for chicken wire. She’s convinced the duck won’t fly away in a month. I got 50 feet of 3-foot tall chicken wire for $15 though, so I’m willing to at least get the duck smell out of the house. It’s really too big for the bucket now, and hopefully it’ll be happier in the garden anyway. Luckily, Dad had some fence posts I could use, so I didn’t have to spend anything on that.
   
I’ll re-home the duck in the morning. She’d better not eat it.

Seriously, I know exactly what being a parent is like after this past month.

We finally finished unboxing all of the 1:1 laptops today. We won’t have to do that again for three years. Who even knows where I’ll be by then?

We stopped by 10 Box Plus on the way to our potluck lunch so Allen and I could get our contributions. I picked up some deviled egg potato salad that was awesome, as well as an Orange Crush cake that was also delicious. Ben smoked some pork shoulder for BBQ sandwiches, and everything was really great.

After work, I came home to a freshly delivered case of Soylent Cacao and some Dove chocolates that came in an insulated box with icepacks from Amazon. I was really impressed.

From there, I fed the duck and tried to spend some time with it. I’m torn on whether to build a pen for it in the garden, or just keep it inside until I’m able to get it to a pond. It’d be neat to have a duck around, but these things like to migrate away. It doesn’t really like me at all anyway. I guess what’s good for the duck is good for me. I really wanted to crochet a harness for it though.

I tried to play a round of Battlegrounds, but Johnny rage quit less than five minutes into the first round. After that it was cancerous teams on Overwatch until I earned all of my bonus loot boxes.

At least tomorrow’s Friday again.